Monday, November 30, 2009

I see where recently on his Facebook Page, Saskatchewan MP Ralph Goodale blames Prime Minister Harper's inaction for the fall in revenues at the Potash Corp of Saskatchewan. Really? Because some of us economists were following the story at home. I have been bullish on Potash for months, but I jumped off the short term bandwagon when I found out that Canadian farmers were boycotting the fertilizer because it was too effective and thus became too expensive.

Potash is arguably the most effective fertilizer on the planet, but it is hardly the only option. It was so good so fast that crop producers bid up the price to astronomical levels. Then a global recession hit and everyone realized that the price was far too high and that there were other options for crop fertilizer. Thus farmers organized a boycott, and profits plummeted drastically. Though Mr Goodale conveniently neglects to mention that the biggest reason for the decline in revenue were local boycotts by Canadian food producers, many in Saskatchewan. Just because Potash is produced in Sask, that doesn't mean farmers should be forced to pay an inflated price when there are substitutes.

Instead, Mr Goodale seems most content to blame POT's woes on Harper's diplomacy, suggesting that the Prime Minister should have somehow forced China to pay an absurd premium for Potash. China, like farmers in the Canadian Prairies is waiting for the price to come down before signing a supply contract, and if the price does not come down, they will simply fertilize with option B. We can't make them pay a price that they can't afford to pay, even if a member of the Canadian Trade delegation got down on his knees and "serviced" the Chairman! As of October 25th, China was delaying signing its fertilizer deal for 2010 because it wanted prices to come down. But the Prime Minister should force them to pay a premium? How does this make any sense?

This is what Mr Goodale had to say on Facebook, a scholarly medium for economic theory...

One of our key exports to China is potash. That market has been in trouble for months. And the trouble is hitting the finances of the Saskatchewan government. Provincial revenues are down. Programs and services for people in Saskatchewan are being cut back because potash sales to China have not been going well.

So what has Mr. Harper been doing to help? In a word – nothing!

Copying the highly successful “Team Canada” trade missions, which begun under Liberal governments, this Prime Minister should have been in China a long time ago – with Premiers and business leaders – strengthening the personal, governmental and business relationships upon which trade with China depends.

Specifically, Stephen Harper should have been playing a direct, personal role in correcting the potash problem for Saskatchewan.

But he was in no position to do so. To repair the damage done by his ineffectual petulance, he now has to mend fences and play catch-up, just to get Canada back into the game.

Here are my final submissions for part 2 of the November polling by Iceman-Decibel Research. See also November Polling Volume 1 or October Polling for past results. Note that there were some "hanging shads" in two of the polls that included Palin which came from radical left attack sites. Those votes were disqualified. Why? Because I can. Reminder that I tend to delete nominees who could not even get 5% of the vote, this policy is waived for certain polls.

I can remember a few years ago when Sicko was released, Mike Moore was on CNN with Doctor Sanjay Gupta insisting that Canadian health care was "free". This led to a heated exchange where Gupta (who also favoured more socialized medicine) was trying to explain to Moore that health care consumed an enormous amount of the Government budget. Moore just kept repeating "no, it is free". He could not wrap his feeble mind around the idea that it costs a lot, and the Government has to pay for it through taxation.

Reading today that health care expenditures are about to consume half of Ontario's expenditures by next year, I am reminded of the blind ignorance of a man heralded by the left as a Prophet of Health. I am also reminded of the federal Liberal Party chastising the Tory Government for not going on CNN to defend the Canadian system when experts south of the border were noting that adopting the Canadian model would be incredibly expensive and slow the speed of delivery. I have nothing but positive things to say about the doctors and nurses who have provided me with health care in my lifetime, and it is not their fault that our current system is extremely expensive. High cost and rationed delivery is what you get when you put the Government in charge of any business.

In the case of Ontario, I am frustrated by this headline that health care is going to consume half the budget by 2010, and this is despite Dalton introducing massive new health care tax premiums in his first budget; which greatly increased his government's tax revenue. I also remember reading a story a few years ago that Dalton was going to start paying for things like sex changes. I sent an e-mail to one of my Poli Sci friends titled "is Dalton McGuinty nucking futs?"

Short of banging my head against a wall, I don't know how else to make the point that a regulated tiered system with private enterprise is absolutely necessary. Government monopolies in any business are never a good thing. We need to inject a little "common sense" into our health care debate.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

My latest webpoll; if you could choose the title of the next Paul Martin book, what would be the most appropriate? Options include; Destroying the Liberal Party Come Hell or High Water, Jack Layton; A Love Story, A Bold Fresh Piece of Liberal Feces, My Life Destroying the Liberal Party, The Sponsorship Program; A Love Story, Bombed, Deliberating With Idiots. I personally voted for Destroying the Liberal Party Come Hell or High Water.

If you listen to organizations like Mediamatters, or "pundits" like Jon Stewart or Mickey Moore, you would be convinced that the Fox News Channel is an evil Republican cabal hell bent on destroying the planet and subjugating poor people into slavery. I have been watching some Fox News this past week, and I am struggling to see what all the fuss is about. Even Sesame Street is taking shots at "Pox News"! When I'm at home, the network I watch is CBC Newsworld, and that is not because they are "fair and balanced". In fact, I could easily make the argument that Evan Soloman is more biased in favour of the Liberal Party of Canada than Bill O'Reilly is towards Republicans. The only reason that I watch the CBC is because I pay taxes, they receive tax dollars, and they provide Canadian content. One of my missions in life is to bust the myths of the LPC, and what better way to do that than watching the network trying to spoon feed Canada Liberal Propaganda.

Meanwhile, I know lots of people in Canada who will chastise the evils of Fox News who have never even watched it. All they see on TV are the carefully selected and cleverly edited short clips on the Daily Show. A show that has a large staff to pour over thousands of hours of footage to find a 3 second clip that Jonny Boy can respond to with a confused look and a dumb joke. It is appalling that so many young people actually watch the Stewart Show and treat it like real news. Personally, I don't think that lefties should be bragging about seducing the hoards of young people who watch the Daily Show into voting for Obama; people who think that those clips and bits factually represent the full content of the Fox News channel. If you actually take the time to sit down and watch Fox, you will see that it is not what the far left says it is. I would even go so far to say that the reason the left is so fiercely dedicated to attacking its integrity is that they do not like a media organization who will actually present an opinion and fact that opposes the radical left agenda. Fox News is a threat to the left wing monopoly on the news. What has to irritate them more than anything else is how Fox easily pulls in the biggest ratings of any cable news network. O'Reilly crushes Wolf Bullshitzer every night, and it is not even close!

"The great thing about television is that if something important happens anywhere in the world, day or night, you can always change the channel."

Saturday, November 28, 2009

I was in a bookstore last week, and I saw the new book Paul Martin; My Life Out of Politics, and I had a good laugh. All that I could say in response is "Paul Martin, I'm really happy that your life is out of politics!" I was thinking of alternate titles for his new book, such as "destroying the Liberal Party come hell or high water" or perhaps "Signing the cheques for the Sponsorship Program; A Love Story" or "A bold fresh piece of Liberal feces" or "appointing idiots to cabinet" or "My life destroying the Liberal Party"...I smell a webpoll coming on. Any suggestions?

Friday, November 27, 2009

Am I correct in assuming that the Liberal Party of Canada is furious over the latest deficit numbers that were released? I am not back in Canada to have their outrage spoon fed to me by CBC Newsworld. How we got to this deficit seems to be quite a simple equation. Recession decreases tax revenue by 20%, Liberals threaten to collapse the government unless they introduce 20-30 billion dollars in stimulus which the Tories do, and increased unemployment increases costs to the government. Even if our deficit for the year reaches 50 billion dollars, the United States will run a deficit of 1.75 trillion dollars. As big of a number as 50 billion dollars is, it is still a tiny fraction of the deficits abroad. Unfortunately the Tory Government cannot slash program spending at the necessary rate to balance the books because the "big government" opposition would surely oppose that. Ignatieff will not state a position on whether we should raise taxes or cut spending, so how exactly are we to negotiate a game plan?

I recall with great detail the speech when Iggy stated that if the government did not pursue a stimulus program he would withdraw support and force an election. Now that we have a deficit, a tiny fraction of that of our southern neighbours, the opposition seems to forget that their fingerprints are on the murder weapon. What would the Liberals do differently?

For those out searching for Christmas gifts for politically minded individuals, I strongly recommend the book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. The book shines a light on the secret history of the American Left, from Mussolini to the politics of change. It is funny because we just did our Christmas gift exchange here in the "Ice Palace" because I am here now and will not be home for Christmas; my dad listened to an interview with Jonah Goldberg on the Laura Ingraham show and bought a copy of the book for me, and I heard an interview with him on the Dennis Miller show and bought a copy for him! What are the odds? We had a good laugh. This author is that insightful that we both went out and bought a copy of the book for each other. I am now reading Arguing With Idiots and Liberal Fascism simultaneously. I have selected an excerpt from the introductory chapter for your viewing pleasure.

"Bill Maher to the contrary, fascism is not "when corporations become government." Ironically, however, George Carlin's conclusion is right, though not his reasoning. If fascism does come to America, it will indeed take the form of "smiley-face fascism" - nice fascism. In fact, in many respects fascism not only is here but has been here for nearly a century. For what we call liberalism - the refurbished edifice of American Progressivism - is in fact a descendant and manifestation of fascism. This doesn't mean that it is the same thing as Nazism. Nor is it the twin of Italian fascism. But Progressivism was a sister movement of fascism, and today's liberalism is the daughter of Progressivism. One could strain the comparison and say that today's liberalism is the well intentioned niece of European Fascism. She is hardly identical to her uglier relations, but she nonetheless carries an embarrassing family resemblance that few will admit to recognizing.

There is no word in the English language that gets thrown around more freely by people who don't know what it means than "fascism." Indeed, the more someone uses the word "fascist" in everyday conversation, the less likely it is that he knows what he's talking about."

Thursday, November 26, 2009

I don't doubt that there are Conservatives who like Sarah Palin. I like her as a person, and I agree with some of her opinions. But being down in the United States, I have been listening to some Michael Savage, a right wing talk show host who hardly toes the Conservative Party line. His theory is that a lot of the people who are advocating a Palin Presidency are in fact far left Liberals. People who want Palin on a Presidential ticket, because they know that she can't win the center. The left wants Palin to win the nomination for 2012, because she is grossly inexperienced and is polarizing in the center where most of the votes are. I have experienced this in my own blogging and polling. Anytime I run a poll that includes Palin, be it for President or the most likely to bring Bin Laden to justice, I have personally witnessed an influx of traffic from Liberal sites and they all vote Palin. They even voted for Palin over their own man Obama for most likely to bring justice to Osama. I have to ask the question, why are the left wingers going undercover to "support" Palin?

Despite accusations from at least one Blogging Tory that I am a coward for having the opinion that Palin is far too inexperienced to be President, the left eats that up and runs with it. So am I the bad guy for disagreeing with far, far right opinion, when the left wants the far, far right opinion to dominate the narrative? I'll tell you what, I really want Obama to lose in 2012. Palin is not the candidate to do this. The left is most afraid of Giuliani, and that's the guy that I will continue to endorse for the next 3 years. I won't stop talking about it, and I won't wither into my foxhole like a scared coward.

The far left wants Palin to run for President. In that sense, her candidacy is a Trojan Horse. The left wants the leaders of Troy to drag that icon past the city walls. I will do whatever I can, however tiny my influence, because I want Obama to lose and I will endorse the candidate who maximizes the probability that this happens. And hey, if Obama wants to empty Gitmo into the New York law courts, either make Rudy the Chief prosecutor, or make him Commander and Chief to clean up the mess of this fiasco.

I saw the headline that Mike Ignatieff delivered a grandiose proclamation of the Liberal "Climate Action Plan" today. I immediately set out to write a post to bust it to pieces, but when I checked out the National Post website, I saw that Kelly McParland already beat me to it. He wrote a fantastic piece, which I strongly recommend reading. Well done Kelly, well done indeed!

I was born during a very eventful year on Planet Earth. In November of 1979, two weeks before my birth, Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy for President of the United States while Jimmy Carter was running the country into oblivion. Joe Clark was the Prime Minister of Canada. If people are put on this planet for a reason, here are some of the events that happened when I was tapped for entry into existence.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

This week, the Iceman reaches a special milestone, goodbye 20's, hello 30's. That age when your body starts to slow down, but your eyes see the world with greater clarity. There are Liberals whom I'm sure would eagerly debate the merits of my "clarity", but I will not be deterred by the musings of the misguided. To those Libs, I would remind you that there are some Conservatives who don't like me anymore than you do. Such is the nature of being a Libertarian.

One of the gifts that I received was a beautiful Canada Olympic shirt. The logo is magnificent! It is about time that a governing party had the insight to put "C" for Canada on an Olympic uniform. I don't like it being coloured Liberal red, but you can't always be perfect. I will be wearing that shirt with pride during the upcoming Olympic Games in Vancouver, proudly flaunting that majestic "C".

When you reach a milestone like this, you wonder what you would say to a younger you when you turned 20. If only I knew then what I know now, how would my life have been different? What pain could I have avoided, what opportunities could I have followed? And yet, if who you are now is very happy, would you change anything at all? To paraphrase Kanye West, as much as I can wish that I could right my wrongs, it's funny, these same wrongs helped me write this song. Really, all that I can do is reflect on the mistakes of my youth and use them to be the man that I want to be, even if I am an asshole. The wise philosopher Dennis Leary said it best "I'm just a regular Joe with a regular job, I'm your average white, suburbanite slob. I like football, and porno, and books about war."

I would also like to thank Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy for the inspiration for the title of this post. This whole week, I have been walking around saying "I'm a man, I'm 30"!

A new survey by Iceman-Decibel Research suggests that 100% of Canadians hold the Martin Government responsible for creating the prisoner transfer agreement that allegedly led to detainees being tortured. These results come as the Liberal Party is relentlessly attacking the governing Tories for not cleaning up the Liberal mess fast enough. This whole conversation is asinine, but since the Liberal Party is bleeding votes to the NDP, they are desperately trying to create a controversy that they believe can launch them back into power. Meanwhile, if the Liberal allegations are correct, then the transfer deal the Liberals designed led to the violations of the Geneva Conventions, and if the testimony of Mr Colvin is accurate, then these Geneva violations occurred under the Martin Government.

This poll is 100% accurate 20 times out of 20, because there was only one government in power when the transfer treaty was signed. I realize that there is only one option to choose from, but again, only one government was actually running the ship.

Do the Liberals not realize how dumb it is of them to engage in these attacks?

How fantastic that the "great people" at Harris-Decima took the time to ask 2,036 Canadians if they believe members of the Canadian Armed Forces violated the Geneva Conventions. You assholes are doing God's work. I would like to know the exact question that H.D asked the people that they surveyed. The CBC is very delighted about the results of this potentially biased survey, as it shows the PR blitz by Evan Soloman to convince Canadians that Canada was complicit in torture seems to have dented public opinion, at least according to Harris-Decima. Again, it would be nice to know the question that the pollsters asked. Do 51% of people believe that the Liberals also knew about the torture when they were in power and transferring prisoners under the system that they created? It is not hard to skew a poll if you frame the question and options properly. Did they actually ask people if they believed the Government assertion that Colvin's claims were flimsy? Or was that brilliant analysis brought to us by the CBC? I visited the Harris Decima website and didn't see anything about this survey, but the CBC is really jazzed about it.

The survey found 51 per cent of respondents believed Colvin's statement that prisoners handed over by Canadian soldiers to Afghan authorities were likely abused and that the government knew of the problem.

By comparison, only 25 per cent said they believed the Harper government's assertion that Colvin's claims are flimsy and not credible.

I have recently discovered a new channel down here in the US of A, Investigative Discovery, which is basically a police and law enforcement channel. I just finished watching a documentary about Rudy Giuliani and his life long war against organized crime. Born in Brooklyn, he grew up in a city where many young Italians idolized the Mafia. A brutal force of organized crime that terrorized the city. A young Giuliani made it his mission in life to free Americans from the iron fist of the mob. He graduated from the Law School at NYU in 1968. In 1980, one month after the election of Ronald Reagan, Rudy switched party affiliation from Independent to Republican. In 1981 he was tapped by the Reagan Administration to a high post in the Department of Justice. When Reagan stepped on stage to declare war on the Mafia and organized crime, the 38 year old Rudy Giuliani was on the stage with the President. Sarah Palin was in high school.In 1983, Giuliani was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. At the time, crime rates in NYC were through the roof, and the majority of that criminal activity was the product of organized crime. Rudy embarked on his mission to free his beloved city from the terror of mob rule virtually immediately. He once said "I think it would be great for Italian Americans if we could rid ourselves of the mob." He set out to banish heroin and crack from the streets, to prosecute corruption in Wall Street, and engage in an all out blitzkrieg against organized crime. He rolled over the mob "Maginot Line" like hot butter on your breakfast toast. About the time that Sarah Palin was competing in a beauty contest, Rudy was relentlessly engaged in building his case against the heads of the 5 families. The prosecution won on November 19 1986, and all those mob bosses are either still in prison or dead.

Rudy Giuliani's coordination of disaster response in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks was extraordinary in the face of the worst tragedy in the history of the United States. If Rudy as President of the United States would engage Al Qaeda with the same passionate vigour with which he engaged organized crime in New York City, I wouldn't care if he showed up to work in the Oval Office wearing women's clothes!

If you polled police officers across the country, who would you rather have as your Commander and Chief, Rudy Giuliani or Sarah Palin, guaranteed it would be at least 80% Rudy.

If you polled gangsters across the country, who would you rather have as Commander and Chief, Rudy Giuliani or Sarah Palin, guaranteed it would be at least 95% Sarah.

If you polled Al Qaeda constituents, who would you rather have as President of the United States, Rudy Giuliani or Sarah Palin, guaranteed it would be at least 95% Sarah.

Sarah Palin is a nice lady and I like her on a personal level, but if I have to endorse a candidate to run against Obama on the Republican ticket in 2012, it is Rudy by a country mile.

"One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half."

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Tonight I was out out on the balcony with my parents cooking some delicious BBQ, and I farted. The acoustics of the bowel movement was such that it elicited laughter. I said "I can squeeze it out like a someone playing the trumpet to sound good, but it is still shit. Not unlike the Harmonized Sales Tax, I can make it sound really great coming out of my asshole, but once it spreads, it smells like shit." We then started asking, which scale should you adopt to measure the effectiveness of a fart, let's call it the sphincter scale. This led to a debate of whether the acoustics of the fart or its stink is the best measure of its devastation. I argued the smell, my father argued the sound. "Yes dad, but I can clear a room with a fart that nobody heard." His rebuttal was "sure you can clear the room with a stink, but nobody enjoys it. But if you can make it sound good, they can at least laugh at the melody as they flee."

I then go to my mom and say "is fart humour the lowest comedic denominator?" She said "no, everybody farts, even Queen Elizabeth farts." Which then led to me breaking out into a spoof of REM's Everybody Hurts, that was "everybody farts, sometimes."

Perhaps the rest of the world may not concur that this was a humourous conversation, but we laughed our asses off, pun intended...

My parents are nearing retirement and will be moving back to Canada in the next few years. They have a decision to make, with half their children and grandchildren in BC and half in Ontario, where do they relocate to? I was telling my mother that I strongly recommend against moving to Ontario while McGuinty is still running the ship. He makes Governor Schwarzenegger look fiscally responsible by comparison. I left after the first McGuinty budget. I still remember the election campaign that brought him to power, where he ran countless commercials where he looked into the camera and said "I will not raise your taxes". I knew that was bullshit because there is no way that you could spend what he was proposing to spend without massive new taxation. Sure as shit, on his very first budget he introduced massive new taxation, probably one of the single largest tax increases in the history of Ontario, Bob Rae notwithstanding. I will never forget picking up the newspaper that morning to read the catastrophic news. I was like Gimli running into Balin's Tomb in the Mines of Moria. They acted shocked that there was a budget deficit after SARS grounded Toronto's economic activity to a dead stop, and blamed their massive tax increase on the outgoing administration. Really guys?

While I was making my decision of "do I stay or do I go now" I went to visit my parents. One night they played a CD by the animals. I heard the song "I got to get out of this place" and at that exact moment, I made the decision to leave. I will never move back to Ontario while Dalton is in power, and I am also advising my parents against doing so. Christ, I think I would rather live in North Korea. Granted, Gordon Campbell is an abortion, or I wish he'd abort the position. Carbon tax. That's all I gotta say. Maybe my entire family in both provinces should pack up and move to Alberta. I hear a lot of good things about Alberta.

I have been reading through Glenn Beck's new book, and it is hilarious. I know this guy has a propensity to fly off the handle on his TV and radio programs, and like Dennis Miller I have apprehensions about his sanity. You need to remember that Beck often uses sarcasm, and moderate the opinion through that prism. I just love how he keeps quoting Barney Frank and idiot celebrities. Chapter 1 is a defense of Capitalism. Read this excerpt from page 2 and decide for yourself. This book makes a great Christmas gift.

"Like O.J Simpson, our free market system seems to be put on trial at regular intervals. People love it until it stops working the way they think it should. Then it becomes the villain.

Wall street was loved; then it was hated. Alan Greenspan was idolized, then he was demonized. People envied those who flew in private jets; then they despised them. It's amazing how quickly opinions can change, especially when people are looking to blame someone else for their problems.

The truth is that capitalism is neither good nor evil, it just is. Capitalism can't get you a job, a bigger house, or a better retirement--you have to do all those things for yourself. But what capitalism can do is foster an environment where those with the will to succeed have a better chance of achieving their dreams.

Do hardworking people still fall through the cracks? Absolutely. Are there peaks and valleys as excesses in markets are worked out over time? No doubt. But I defy anyone to show me another system that has done as much to quickly raise the standard of living and quality of life of a country as capitalism has.

Last night I went to see the new 2012 movie, and the plot was awful. I was watching the film and had flashbacks to the Global Warming propaganda film The Day After Tomorrow which served the purpose of frightening people into agreeing with the cause. Before we departed to watch 2012, I explained to my mother the history behind the Mayan calendar, how they wrote it thousands of years into the future and stopped on this day. My mom said "well they had to stop eventually, right?" Good call mom! So the movie started off with the "science" behind this doom and gloom scenario, which has one scientist proclaiming that the Mayans predicted the end of the world. No, they stopped carving the calendar into stone, they don't predict that neutron radiation will super heat the Earth's core and lead to the land masses collapsing into the ocean.

We are watching the movie, and as a mathematician, I am busting 75% of their plot twists. To the point where when the land began collapsing into the ocean, I lean to my mom and whisper "don't worry mom, that is never going to happen". All the science in the movie is pure fiction with a probability of occurrence of zero. For example, they need to fly a plane, and a member of their posse took a flying lesson once. They get into the sky, and suddenly this guy is flying through collapsing buildings and shooting trains like he is Maverick in Top Gun. Then all these absurd impossible events happen in sequence, and eventually the team gets to these "arcs" that were hastily built to save our species. Most of the people get on the boats, but the 1000 meter high tsunami penetrates the Himalayan Mountains and is travelling so fast that they find themselves with 20 minutes before impact. Some people are still outside, so the chief scientist goes into this speech about humanity and how they need to save all these people. He argues that we should risk extinction to save a few extra people. So in 20 minutes, he does the big speech, everyone debates it, they lower this massive mechanical doors, move a thousand people into the boats, and close the doors. All in 20 minutes. There was an 90% chance that doing this would kill all mankind, but still the leadership agrees to it in the name of humanity. It was insane.

I was pissed off by the end of the movie. Normally for an action fiction, you suspend disbelief and enjoy the show. But when I put it into the context of the Day After Tomorrow that converted people to the cause, I am upset because I know that a large number of people in the fringe element totally buy into the theory of the world ending Dec 2012 and advocate it as a real likelihood. If a normal person who knows nothing about this watches the film and becomes interested in the theory, they will research it for more information, leading them to the blogs and stories about the predictions of this impossible event happening. I am concerned that some people will watch the movie and buy into the conspiracy theory, just like The Day After Tomorrow. Absurd science designed to scare people into compliance. I broke down the math of the conspiracy theory in Nostradamus 2012. When explaining to my mom why I was agitated, I said "this is insane, and I don't want anyone to watch it and buy into the insanity the way people bought into The Day After Tomorrow."

Nostradamus experts once tried to convince me that 2/3 of the world's people would die in July 1999. Nothing ever happened. Now they want to convince me that the world will end in 2012. Sorry guys, you lost me at your last failed prediction of Armageddon. Look at what the experts were saying then and what they are saying now. Same shit, different story. I don't know if the people who wrote the brutal screenplay intended on indoctrinating people to an insane theory. We are not in a final countdown, and anyone worried about it is worried about nothing. Something unlikely may happen in Dec 2012, but the probability of events like in 2012 occurring is exactly zero.

The movie was awful, the special effects were really good, and Woody Harrelson was entertaining. Cusack gave aruably his worrst performance.

Monday, November 23, 2009

I thought that I heard a rumour once upon a time that Americans are "ugly" and evil. When I was walking through the crowded Salt Lake City airport, I noticed a disproportionately high frequency of beautiful women. I don't know if that has anything to do with the SLC having the single largest concentration of Mormons in the world, and that perhaps Mormon women are more attractive on average than non-Mormons. I just have not seen any of these alleged "ugly Americans". What I have seen are a whole lot of "sexy Americans". But I suppose that ugly label came from that book about how Americans are ugly on the inside, are evil, rape the world, wantonly destroying less developed nations, etc. I'm trying to make some sense of it all, because of the hundreds of Americans that I have met in my life, 90% of them were really nice people. I know that there are some bad apples in the lot; but those people (most of them on the far left) who paint all Americans with the same broad brush are irrationally ignorant.

Being out of Canada and detached from CBC Newsworld, I am out of touch with the Liberal narrative on "torture-gate". But I logged in to the National Post website and saw that Peter MacKay said that the Tories were aware of the allegations that detainees may have been tortured under the Martin Government. I am not there to watch the CBC reaction, but I can imagine that the Liberals are going bananas, and their CBC allies with them. Basically the last Liberal Government set up a transfer system that led to the alleged torture, and now the Liberals are furious about the speed at which the Tories cleaned up the Liberal mess. The Conservative Government did clean up the Liberal mess, but not fast enough for Liberal wants. This was happening under the Martin Government, and I am sure the allegations were surfacing then too about how the transfer system that the Liberals built was broken. This is extremely hypocritical to the point of absurdity.

Let me tell you a similar story from my own life. When Dalton McGuinty first chased me out of Ontario, I got a job as a night janitor at GM Place in Vancouver. An odd job for a mathematician, but as an obsessive hockey fan, it was fantastic to have a backstage pass. I thought that I would be Good Will Hunting and work my way up the ladder. But no, janitors virtually never get promoted to the front office, so I moved on to new pursuits. There was this one night when Nickleback came to town. If you have never been to a Nickleback concert, it is nuts, and ungodly amounts of alcohol are consumed. Afterwards as everyone was leaving, some dipshit pulled down his pants and dropped a deuce right in the middle of the concourse. It sat there for 2 hours before I got there to clean it up (it is a very big building and there was vomit everywhere). Meanwhile a number of people had complained about the feces on the floor. The complaints got back to my boss, who then gave me shit for not cleaning up the shit before people could complain about it. By following standard procedures, it took me time to get there and take the appropriate measures to fix the problem. That night I was busy cleaning up all the vomit everywhere else, and thus my response time was hindered. The Tories were very busy cleaning up 12 years of Liberal vomit when they came to power in 2006.

I do feel sympathy for the Tory Government and all the fire they are talking from the very people who shit in the middle of the concourse. Do they not understand that they are drawing light on their own incompetence by making such a big deal about this, and that they are trying to shift the national narrative to Canada being complicit in torture? That is really going to help maintain our standing in the world as a great country. They are exporting the message that the Canadian Armed Forces may have violated the Geneva Conventions. Thanks guys. The Liberals doing what they think is the best to get them back in power is not what is best for the country. They are behaving like drunken patrons at a Nickleback concert.

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

As a golfer of Scottish ancestry, this might be the funniest clip that I have ever seen! I literally fell on the floor laughing when my parents introduced me to it. In addition to being a Scot, I am also obsessed with golfing. I have played approximately 1500 holes in 2009. I had never quite thought about the creative process that led to the creation of the sport in Scotland circa the 15th century. It is possible that Robin's comedic interpretation of how this invention occurred may indeed be historically accurate. My forefathers were still living in Scotland when it happened.

I am praying for some global warming to melt the snow on the ground in Salt Lake City so that I can get out on the course. Otherwise I paid Delta $50 to transport my clubs for no purpose.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

I arrived safely in Salt Lake City, and have had a marvelous night with my parents. I had been concerned that Janet Napoleon had flagged Libertarians as security threats, and that I would be subjected to the "works" of security screening. I was wearing a Red Wings jersey and hat. The American border guard who questioned me looked at me and said "so you are a Red Wings fan?" I said "yes, is that a problem?" Turns out he was born in Michigan, and we had a nice chat. I did not have to submit to a body cavity search. I got to my parents house and as this is a birthday vacation there was a gift waiting for me. I unwrapped it, and it was Arguing With Idiots by Glenn Beck. I read the first chapter, and it is hilarious! I preferred CNN Beck to the more unhinged Fox News Beck, but his book is laugh out loud funny. My main man Dennis Miller is not a fan of Beck, and I remember when he was on the O'Reilly Factor once, they talked about Beck and Miller was looking over his shoulders scared. O'Reilly made a joke that they keep Beck locked up in a cage in the back until air time. I don't always agree with Beck, but sometimes he is exactly right.

I also wrote a poem on the air plane.

My ass is sitting in a planeThis safety speech it is mundaneThe wheels they have started turning,the Mexican food in my bowls its a churning

Now we are moving very fastthe point of no return has been passedI really hope that I don't dieWhere we're going, I'll touch the sky!

It is official, we are flyingThankfully I am still breathingThe man in front of me displays intent,on scoring with the flight attendant

I don't blame him, she's really hotThough I suspect this is all for notI scorched his earth with another fartIn the other direction she did dart

Now she is sitting down beside himMy spastic colon did not dissuade them!I hope the methane my ass is producingdoes not induce global warming!

The landing it was really roughmore nauseating than Hillary Duff!

Thank you, I'll be here all week! As an aside, it is unseasonably cold and there is snow on the ground. I am praying for global warming to melt the snow such that I may golf. I plead with the world to pump as much carbon into the sky as possible so that we can melt this snow. But I also love to ski, so that's what we'll do if need be.

But I do know when I'll be back again. I am departing today for Salt Lake City, Utah, the venue of the last Canadian Gold Medal in Men's Hockey. If you see a Detroit Red Wings Fan at the Vancouver airport today, there is a high probability that it is the Iceman. I look a lot like my dad, circa pro hockey in the 70s. I know that some of my enemies would prefer that I not return, but I am like a cat. I have 9 lives, and I have only used up 5 of them!

Saturday, November 21, 2009

I have spent the last few days watching the CBC as Liberals, both in government and in punditry, accuse the Conservative government of war crimes. The most pointed knife coming from Evan Soloman, who hosted a hostile interview with the Minister of Defence, and then later in the program had blogging experts to discuss the response of the Blogging Community. Expert #1 proclaimed that it was fantastic that we are all talking about this, Expert #2 ostensibly accused the Harper Government of war crimes, and Expert #3 said the Blogging Tories had been mute on the issue, and according to the expert panel silence was evidence of guilt.

I hate that we are even talking about this. It is a ridiculous story that is being launched into the national narrative by a desperate opposition and the CBC who promotes them. Nobody really wants to talk about it because there are also allegations amid the allegations that our brave soldiers knew about this, and that individual soldiers committed war crimes by not preventing it. This is lunacy, and forcing an elaborate pomp and circumstance helps nobody but a desperate Liberal Party that is now only a paltry 5% above the NDP in national polling.

When I sat down to write what I wrote today, my modus operandi was directly focused at the mockery of our Government and Armed Forces that was on parade Friday on the Soloman show. The response from the Liberals has been pure venom. I now have Liberal visitors proclaiming their wishes of my death. Others are trying to tell me that I am promoting slander and should be prosecuted in a court of law. Meanwhile, they are engaging in the ultimate hypocrisy by alleging that our Government and Military engaged in war crimes, and then slamming me for just flipping their own shticks back on to them! I learned at a young age that I am rubber and you are glue, whatever you throw bounces off me and sticks to you. I don't believe that ANY Canadians were complicit in war crimes, Liberal, Conservative, or Independent. But when I see the venom being heaped on the party that I support by the party that signed the treaty that led to the allegations, what do I say? How do you respond to that lunacy?

The Liberals signed the treaty. The whistleblower says the torture was rampant at the end of the Martin administration. All the rules that slowed down the bureaucracy existed after 12 years of Liberal neglect of the Armed Forces. The Tories cleaned up the mess. How in the name of Christ has Peter MacKay committed a war crime? This doesn't make any sense to me, I don't want to be talking about it, but if the Blogging Tories don't say anything, Liberal pundits take that as an admission of guilt. I don't think Bill Graham committed a war crime. I don't believe that Richard Colvin committed a war crime (notice in that post that I never directly said that he committed a war crime, but merely asked if he did). I don't believe that the Harper Government committed a war crime. But how the Hell do you respond when the other side is slandering you? Do you just shut up and let them get away with it and sway public opinion, or do you fight fire with fire. Liberals quickly play the slander and personal attack cards when people expose their own negligence, incompetence, or criminal behavior. Right, John Kerry lost because he gets “swift boated”, but slander Palin and everything is okay and they can say that there has been permanent political shift.

Before I published any of my posts today, I had considered the possibility of legal action against me. My defense before I wrote any of it was; if the other team is slandering you and you recognize that it is bogus and ignore it, and then they assume silence equals guilt, what are you supposed to do? The Liberals are saying that the Tories are only capable of responding with personal attacks, but what do you call what the Liberals are saying about Peter MacKay on the Soloman Show? They are making personal attacks, and then saying that the government is deplorable for compromising the integrity of the accusers.

This is insane! Are you guilty of slander when you respond to slander with slander?

"Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population."

In 2005 the Liberal government of Paul Martin, led by Defence Minister Bill Graham, signed a deal to hand over prisoners to Afghan officials. Once in Afghan custody, it is alleged that detainees were tortured by Afghan police, and thus by allowing this to happen the Liberal Government was complicit in violating the Geneva Conventions. They signed the deal that sent innocents into harm's way, and failed to ensure proper oversight and humane treatment of detainees in the deal that they signed. When Liberal hero Richard Colvin was sent to Afghanistan in 2006, immediately after the Liberals were removed from power, he noted that abuse and torture of innocents was rampant. Ergo, under Bill Graham, we were knowingly sending scores of civilians into torture. Shame on you Bill Graham and Paul Martin.

Michael Ignatieff was quoted as saying "When will the prime minister replace his minister of national defence, who is incompetent, and replace him with a minister who can be sure the Geneva Convention will be respected by our allies and by Canada itself?" And I'm pretty sure he was talking directly to Paul Martin, ironic since Ignatieff himself believes adamantly in using "coerced interrogations" as an evidence collection technique. Thankfully the Conservatives were elected in 2006 and set to drafting a new deal that would ensure adherence to International Law.

When Richard Colvin came forward to publicly announce the folly of the torture treaty signed by the Martin administration, the Liberals dim wittedly latched on to this issue in a lame attempt to flip their evil deeds back on the government who cleaned up their mess. For reasons that this pundit cannot understand, they began to shout and scream about the torture that the treaty they signed created. They initiated the torture, and are now trying to blame their own mess on the government that cleaned it up. That's like Liberals blaming the Sponsorship Scandal on the Tories. This is insane. Not only are we providing a platform for far left radicals to proclaim Canadian complicity in torture, but we are diminishing the accomplishments and tarnishing the integrity of the fine men and women who serve this country in our Armed Forces.

What sense does it make for Liberals to call public attention to their own war crimes? How can this possibly benefit them? There is a story about a little girl named Pandora who owned a beautiful box that contained untold evils. For whatever reason, Pandora felt compelled to open the box, and fury was unleashed upon her. Not unlike what the Liberals are doing right now calling attention to their own war crimes. Shame on you Liberals.

An interesting little factoid about the new film coming out, the main set was constructed in the same giant warehouse where the Glen Clark NDP Government commissioned the notorious Fast Ferries to be built; arguably the single largest fiscal catastrophe in the history of Canadian Confederation. A movie about the end of the world filmed in the same warehouse where they build the Fast Ferries, destroying the BC NDP Party for a generation. Irony?

Exactly what day did we begin turning over detainees to Afghan officials, and who oversaw that process? The Tories did not form government until February of 2006, while Bill Graham was Minister of Defence from 2004-2006. According to Richard Colvin, who arrived in Afghanistan in April 2006, the widespread abuse and torture was already taking place when he arrived. This means that according to Colvin, under the stewardship of Bill Graham, prisoners were being turned over to torture. What liability rests at the feet of Bill Graham for setting up the transfer process that allegedly violated the Geneva Conventions? This whole mess started under the Liberal watch. It is akin to if Martin had lost the 2004 election and then blamed the Conservatives when the news of the Sponsorship Scandal broke.

Within a year of the Tories taking over, a new deal was struck to fix the broken Liberal transfer process. I think if there are any civil lawsuits on this matter, Bill Graham is more liable than Peter MacKay. At least Mr. MacKay did something about it. I'm sorry that it didn't happen sooner, but the Tories were very busy cleaning up after 12 years of Liberal corruption during their first year back in office.

"I've been trying to make some sense of it all, but I can see it makes no sense at all."

A day after watching Peter MacKay's fantastic interview on the partisan Soloman Show, something the Minister said stuck with me. How many times he and other members of Parliament met with this guy while the alleged torture was taking place and never said anything. Now in the prism of hindsight, he is claiming that he tried to file reports in back channels because he did not like the Generals? I am in the business of safety and security. If there is a safety hazard on my site, I am obligated to not only file a report, but to verbally tell my superiors immediately. If I don't say anything to my supervisor and instead file a report that may take weeks to traverse the bureaucracy and a civilian dies because of that hazard while my report is being reviewed, I am liable. My duty is to immediately report the hazard to my superiors, otherwise I personally share criminal liability for the innocent death.

Therefore my question is, if this guy knew that innocent people were being tortured and he did not tell a single superior visiting the theatre of war, is Richard Colvin personally liable for the alleged violation of the Geneva Conventions?

I love seeing these latest poll numbers that place the Liberal Party of Canada a paltry 5% above the NDP nationally. Has the gap between the two left wing parties ever been smaller? Jesus Christ, I don't think it was that small under Dion! The myth that the Liberals are the "natural governing party of Canada" is totally busted. They should do an episode of Mythbusters about the natural governing party mirage. In hindsight, it was reckless, childish, and outright stupid for Joe Clark and Scott Bryson to be so adamant about not joining forces. One has to ask the question if their opposition to the merger was because they wanted to keep handing majority governments to the Liberals. I broke down the math of the natural governing party myth back in May. At least something good became of the actions of Belinda Stronach. If not for Peter courting Belinda, would the merger ever have happened?

The P and the C may not always agree,But united we must be if we are to win a majority!

I just read in the National Post that NDP support is surging in Ontario at the expense of the Liberal Party. This begs the question, why are the Liberals bleeding votes to the NDP? Is it Dalton, Mikey, or Jack leading the surge? This is the subject of my latest webpoll. If the Liberals are bleeding votes from both flanks like a hammer and anvil, this election they seem to so desperately want may be disastrous. The French Army at Dien Bien Phu thinks the Liberals made a tactical mistake in demanding an election.

When I woke this morning, I put in my headphones and clicked on "shuffle songs", the first one on the list was Informer, by Snow. As the wise philosopher once said "I lick your boom boom down" whatever that means. Which gets me to my next poll question; which album should the Iceman be most ashamed of owning. The options are 12 Inches of Snow, by Snow, which hit the charts when I was graduating junior high and Informer was played 3 times at our graduation dance. Then there was high school when I had a crush on a girl who loved ABBA, so I figured that it would increase my probability of courtship if I memorized their Greatest Hits and could quote ABBA verbatim. My plan did not succeed. The ability to quote ABBA songs in the absence of mojo does not attract women. Then there was Kris Kross; where my sister and I forced our parents to listen to the song "Jump" about 300 times on a vacation to Myrtle Beach.

Friday, November 20, 2009

This evening I purchased my copy of the new Star Trek DVD by J.J Abrams. I had already paid to attend the theatrical release, and now I paid a premium price to own the full feature DVD package. Yes, I am a Trekker, and I think this is a fantastic film. It was beautifully casted, and I hope that Mr Abrams makes more Star Trek films after this one. Note that as a 19 year old, I did win a Regional Qualifier for the Star Trek Customizable Card Game, but I declined my invitation to the World Championships because the summer ended and I had to go back to school. For all our extra curricular fun, sometimes reality calls. My biggest complaint with this film is that Scotty is not introduced until well after the one hour mark. Scotty should have been there from the start. My DNA is 75% Scottish, and I am a disciple of Scottish Economist Adam Smith.

Mr. Abrams, please make more Star Trek movies. I will be spending my consumer dollars to consume your product.

I would like to make another foray into poetry in honour of Dr. Seuss. Given my recent dust up with another Blogging Tory, I just want to say that I am a Progressive Conservative and we need to co-exist in order to win a majority government. Beware of satire.

Politically speaking, I'm a PCAs forward thinking as can beI want to colonize the moon and starsDammit let's get human boots on Mars!

What you need to remember in the end,is that the enemy of your enemy is your friend.Iggy and Rae are walking talking moral hazardsWhile Dalton McGuinty is a fucking oral bastard!

We must exist in this sorority,if we are to win a majority.You may think you can with only C,but to win it all, you need the P!

Yeah sorry, oral bastard was the best phrase I could rhyme to moral hazard. And I do not consider F-Bombs to be profanity. I think it is the most versatile word in the English language, and Dennis Leary had an enormous impact on my formative years.

This evening with my Alberta beef I am drinking a delicious 2006 Galil Mountain Merlot produced at the Kibbutz Yiron in upper Galilee on the northern border of Israel. The 2006 grape from the northern border is particularly delicious and comes very highly recommended by the Iceman's palate. The soil that season was fertile and fresh, yielding what my sister nicknamed "Jesus Juice". I consider the Golan Heights to be part of Israel proper, and sometimes on special occasions I like to send a little money back to Israel in the form of a consumer purchase. It is foolish to demand Israel return the Golan Heights to Syria. In my opinion, Syria forfeited the right to land ownership by about the 5th time they invaded the Jewish State from the strategic highlands. It is a strategic military objective. Give them an inch and they'll take the 100km to Tel Aviv (distance listed is a guess based on a quick glance at my map).

I would also like to take a moment to give a shout out to my main man in the Middle East, Benjamin Netanyahu! I remember the day that Hamas won that election, I saw the results on TV and my jaw dropped. My first reaction was "Israel needs Benny". We need to keep those lunatics between a hammer and anvil. Hamas is holding the people of Gaza hostage, and should be brought in front of the UN Human Rights Commission on war crimes for using innocent civilians as human shields. May as well make Hezbollah co-defendants while you're at it. Hassan Nasrallah is very high on my "enemies of the world" shit list, and I don't agree with the CBC's Nallah Ayed that he is a hero of the people.

I give a toast to Israeli controlled upper Galilee! And Sid Ryan is a dipshit...

The Soloman Show is finally over. He wrapped things up with a spiel about "bloggerheads" which included 3 guests. One talking about how great it is that everyone is talking about Canada being complicit in torture, the other convinced that we committed war crimes, and the supposed moderate proclaimed that the Blogging Tories are completely mute in this issue. I guess he did not read my posts, but then again not a lot of people did. Of the 915 people who have visited my site so far today, only 17 clicked on my post Public Inquiry. My appraisal of Peter MacKay's fantastic interview on this subject earlier on that program did far better. Okay, so if that didn't get the CBC watchdog's attention, let me really take the bull by the horns and say what I think. In terms of what happened on the ground, I defer all my opinion to Chris Alexander.

Our objective in Afghanistan is to help create a sovereign nation that can govern itself and police itself, and keep the radical Islamists out of power. The sooner they can do this, the sooner we can cease combat operations. Most people agree that detainees were tortured in Afghan custody, and the allegation is that we knew about it and thus willingly transferred people into the control of sadistic torturers. I have not seen any allegations that Canadian soldiers themselves tortured people, which is what I would expect given the honour of the men and women of our Armed Forces.

Can we force the Afghans to treat prisoners with the same standards that we do? I'm not sure, but when you look at what is par for the neighborhood, I'd say the country club treatment does not exist. I am lucky that I have never been jailed in Pakistan or Iran as an enemy combatant, but I imagine there are loads of untold horror stories, most ending in death. Saddam just used to drag enemy combatants to the soccer field and shot them with a bullet to the head. Mr. Arar has told us all about the Syrian prison system, which is not much of a departure from the Egyptian system. We can try and force Afghanistan to adopt a more western model, which was exactly the deal that we signed with them a few years ago.

If the argument is that regardless of our ability to enforce kindness of Afghan law enforcement; we should never turn over captured combatants in a war zone to the sovereign nation we are there fighting to protect, then do we have the mobile detention facilities necessary to hold them all? Guantanamo Bay is not accepting new residents, and I need Chris Alexander to tell me our capacity to hold enemy captives in the field of battle. If this was such a crisis, the diplomat had a moral obligation to tell this to Peter MacKay, Generals, and other visiting members of Parliament on the dozens of occasions he met with them and said nothing. I work in security, and if there is any issue of critical importance in the work place, I have an obligation to tell my superior officer face to face at the nearest available opportunity. You don't send an e-mail or file a report that could take months to process.

And as I mentioned before, if innocents get caught in system that is terrible, but non-uniformed enemy combatants blending into civilian populations to use them as human shields are the ones who create that moral hazard. If an innocent goat herder gets thrown in Shawshank, blame rests at the feet of the Taliban for adopting that Maoist tactic.

I am watching Don Martin on the Soloman Show right now. I listened to about 5 minutes of Martin speaking, then I hit mute and started typing. I have to ask the question, what the hell happened to Don Martin? I used to really respect him as a journalist, and I used to agree with him a lot. In the past two years, I have found myself disagreeing with him a little more each time he writes or speaks. In 2004 I agreed with him 75% of the time. In 2009, I agree with him maybe 20% of the time. Did I just get smarter with age, or did Donny Boy catch rabies while he was chasing Tie Domi's sloppy seconds? It is kind of sad being little Timmy watching Old Yeller get sick, until eventually you have to lock him in the back shed and decide.

To use a phrase popular with Mr. Martin, he has "jumped the shark". Just let him passionately chase his latest love interest Danielle Smith around Alberta and mute him. What was the turning point? Was it the Belinda book?

Yes, I reduced myself to watching the Evan Soloman Show today so that I could watch Defense Minister Peter MacKay set the record straight on this latest "controversy". Mr McKay was magnificent! First he had the testicular fortitude to appear on a hostile program with a hostile interviewer. E-Solo was asking loaded questions, while the dipshits running production were floating captions under Peter "did Minister contradict himself" and "torture fallout". I watch a lot of media interviews, and that is just about as hostile a treatment as any government official will receive on television. Bill O'Reilly interviewing Barney Frank thinks Evan was a little too rough.

The Minister of Defense eloquently answered all the hostile questions, and frankly made E-Solo look like the rank amateur he his. By the end of the interview, Evan was fumbling through his questions, contradicting himself, basically getting knocked around like Apollo Creed fighting Ivan Drago in Rocky 4. To Peter MacKay, I say well done!

I just saw Don Martin on with Evan, and so I need to get on to my next post.

Can you believe that Evan Soloman is still hosting a show every afternoon on the CBC? If this were the apprentice, he'd have been canned weeks ago. He is awful, and coincidentally the subject of my latest web poll. I do have a new strategy to quarantine the far left radicals who are visiting my site 30 times a day to try and poison my polls. Hyperbole.

With the coming announcement of the Canadian Olympic Men's Hockey team, I would like to publish my own picks. I did not look up the latest on the injury front, this is just my selection from the top 100 scorers in the NHL.

I am watching a John McCallum press conference on television, and I really have to ask the question; do the Liberals honestly believe that putting this guy in front of a camera to talk about anything benefits their cause? I personally find him obnoxious and his voice is on par with nails screeching down a chalk board. His deportment is also deplorable. It looks like he forgot to comb his hair when he left the house this morning, his eyes are half glazed over, and he is having trouble sitting up straight. His behavior suggests he is recovering from a very late night of drinking and loitering. This guy is one of the biggest reasons that I could never be a Liberal. I am not the biggest fan of "Focus on the Family", but I would rather associate myself with them than a John McCallum seven days a week and twice on Sunday.

I couldn't help but hear on TV, the Opposition demand a Public Inquiry on prisoners of war in Afghanistan. Public Inquiries cost a lot of money, and while sometimes they are necessary, often they are not. In this instance I trust my Armed Forces to do the right thing on the battlefield. I can't comment much beyond that because I was not there and I do not know exactly what happened. I completely defer my opinion to Chris Alexander on this issue. Whatever he says about it, that is my opinion. I trust him implicitly on all things relating to Canada in Afghanistan.

And that's really all that I have to say on this subject. On the matter of the Geneva conventions, the reason that they distinguish rights given to uniformed soldiers is because combatants who blend in to the civilian populations are the people putting innocents in harm's way.

I would like to take a moment to do a public reading from "Oh the Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss. For parents looking for ideas for Christmas gifts for their children, this has to be high on your list if you don't already own it. This book is even better than Green Eggs and Ham! I owe my reading and writing skills to the good Doctor, though when I was a child my personal favourite was the lesser known "On Beyond Zebra."

"Oh, the places you'll go!"

There is fun to be done!There are points to be scored.There are games to be won.And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all.

Fame!

You'll be famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV...

Except when they don't.Because, sometimes, they won't.

I'm afraid that some times you'llplay lonely games too.Games you can't win'cause you'll play against you.

All Alone, whether you like it or not,Alone will be something you'll be quite a lot.And when you're alone, there's a very good chance you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.

There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.

But on you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl. On you will go though the Hakken-Kraks howl. Onward up many a frightening creek,though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak.

On and on you will hike. And I know you'll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are.

You'll get mixed up, of course, as you already know.You'll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go.

So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember thatLife's a Great Balancing Act.

Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.And never mix up your right foot with your left. And will you succeed?Yes! You will, indeed!(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

Kid, you'll move mountains!

You can see where Doctor Seuss influenced my own forays into poetry about some of life's strange birds.

And this is the biggest reason that I fully endorse Rudy Giuliani to be the next President of the United States of America. As someone who works in law enforcement, Rudy is my guy. When Sarah Palin was competing in a beauty contest Rudy was preparing his prosecution of the heads of the 5 families, the Tony Sopranos of New York. I hope that Rudy is on the ticket in 2012. If Palin is in the nomination process and Rudy is not, I may consider suicide as a viable option. I once survived a faze in my youth (under the Chretien Administration) where I was literally Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. But the "eye in the sky" really did not want me to depart this mortal coil. He had plans for me.

The left is flocking to Sarah Palin when her name appears in a web poll, and these dipshits vote more than once. Some conservatives vote in polls, but the Liberals take it to another level, where someone like Dupmar will visit my site 40 times in a day and vote as much as he can. Given the choice between Palin and Obama, they are voting for Palin over their own Messiah. Rather than vote for whom they believe is the best, they are voting for whom they believe taints the poll...ergo, they are not reflecting their honest opinion. I have all their IP addresses flagged, but it would be nice if I could block them from voting. Maybe what I should do is measure what percentage of votes come from the nuts, and subtract that from the totals when I publish the final results in my archives. For other Blogging Tories looking to flag ardent Liberals, Dupmar's IP address is 64.254.16.103 and he is based out of Toronto. Say, isn't Iggy Pop's Command and Control run out of Toronto?

With Sarah Palin heading towards either a Presidential run or a talk show, I figured that I would ask the question of which American Conservative pundit would make the best President. I personally voted for Dennis Miller. I agree with him more than anyone else on the list, including who should be the President of the United States, Rudy Giuliani. That's the guy we want hunting Bin Laden to the Gates of Hell.

And yes, I am talking more about the United States because I am nearing my departure for my vacation in Salt Lake City. Sorry about the comment moderation. Some of the submissions have been vicious, and it is not fun to screen them.

I listened to the interview of Sarah Palin on the Laura Ingraham podcast today, and I think Sarah did a fantastic job. She had well prepared answers to the questions, she performed well in the delivery, and she signalled to me that she would make an excellent host of a television or radio program. She was after all a journalism student...while Rudy was on the front lines of the war against crime and in the process of accumulating his 4000 criminal convictions amid only 25 reversals. I respect her opinion, and I would encourage her to be involved in public life. I completely agree with her opposition to Obama Care.

Having said that, she is completely unqualified to be President of the United States and if her ambition is indeed the White House, that needs to be quashed. When Ingraham asked her about would she declare her support for a Republican candidate, she got a quick and snarky "No". I say 80% chance that after the 2010 midterm elections, Palin will declare her candidacy. I promise that I will be among the first to pontificate the folly of a Palin Presidency. Ingraham also did not discuss Palin quitting her job where she was accumulating the experience necessary to run for higher office. The day after Palin quit, Laura suggested on her show that Sarah fire her advisers. Laura did purposefully avoid the difficult questions, and I would not be the least bit surprised if the questions that were asked were screened by Palin handlers. But all in all, I enjoyed it, I thought Palin handled herself marvelously, and she should never be President. Ever....forever ever.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

I don't know if Raging Tory listened to the Charles Adler Show tonight, but he briefly touched on the Palin subject. I listen to the show every day that I am near a radio on CKNW Newstalk 980 in Vancouver at 7pm Pacific. Interestingly enough, "the Boss of Talk" stated his belief that Conservatives who are speaking about Palin as a serious candidate are making Conservatives look bad. Hmmmm, I thought the premise of Raging Tory's attack on me was that I was making Conservatives look bad by saying that she is not qualified to be President of the United States? A full 9% of Americans endorse a Palin Presidency, and with that kind of super majority, victory is all but certain. Who honestly wants a pitbull like Giuliani to hunt down Bin Laden?

As an aside, I have experienced a remarkable increase in web traffic since this dust with RT began. But my single day record of 6000 hits (c/o Charles Adler directing listeners to my site) still stands. I only did 2500 hits today. Originally I was going to ignore it like I do when Liberals attack, but something bothered me about what Raging Tory was trying to accomplish by starting this fight. Look at the timeline, I wrote a story about Palin not being qualified for office and RT teed off on my comment section. Then, at 3am Pacific Time he decided to write his own blog piece attacking me personally in the title where he essentially wrote an obituary for my Blogging career. Rumours of my demise were a little premature. One could even say more premature than a teenage boy sleeping over at the Palin house...

I posted my response and was going to walk away. He essentially tried to bully me into not criticizing Sarah Palin, and I don't appreciate someone on the far right dictating my subject matter. So I steered into the slide and ran with it. Raging Tory is the one making Conservatives look bad. I am concerned with appealing to the center, and he wants to shift the entire paradigm to the right. He kept repeating on my message board that I was making him look bad because he advocates a Palin Presidency. That's what really pissed off the Hoff.

As the jury deliberates whether or not to expel me from the Blogging Tories, I want to say that I really don't want to join the Liblogs. I'm sure they will really love my past opinions about how Mike Ignatieff is a witch doctor who wants to subjugate the Ukraine and that Bob Rae is a Bolshevik. Then there was that time that I suggested that Dalton McGuinty would benefit from enrolling in kindergarten, or the time I outright proclaimed Dalton a buffoon. I have written over 100 posts about how Iggy should never be Prime Minister. Some mornings I wake up wondering if what I wrote about Iggy Pop the night before qualifies as slander. I don't recall any objections from Conservatives when I posted those opinions. Then there was the time I heralded Mike Harris as the greatest Premier in Canadian history, I'm sure Liberals are going to love that. I once wrote that Trudeau was "Holier than Mao", that should help my popularity in the Liberal community.

At the end of the day, I need a site to host my Blog, and I choose to be a Conservative. I think it would be more appropriate to hold a forum whether or not the Blogging Tories should host bloggers who advocate a Palin Presidency. They are delusional, and are not going to help the Tories win votes in the center. Majority or minority? You choose.

Yes, Raging Tory alleges that I am throwing a fit because I do not support a Palin Presidency. If I am voted off the Island, I will just change teams. I would strongly advise the screeners in the Canadian Armed Forces to investigate Raging Tory as a possible loose cannon. I do not trust his temper. The guy is not all there, and he has been brainwashed by the lunatic fringe.

This is a discussion board thread on the Blogging Tories site, www.bloggingtories.ca? If you want to kick me off, I am not about to shut up. I have voted Conservative in every election that I have ever voted in. My sisters babysat the children of Mike Harris! Do you really want to create an enemy in me because I am strongly opposed to Sarah Palin being on a Presidential ticket?

I fully endorse David Frum as a man of opinion in North America. I put him on the same level as Andrew Coyne, whom I once endorsed as my go to pundit in Canada. Einstein once said originality is the art of concealing your sources, but the following article did inspire me to take a public position against the possibility of a Palin run at the Republican ticket in 2012. My past opinions are well documented in my archives, so I neither plagiarized or hijacked Frum's words. But I read this article that he wrote and said to myself, I need to write more about this.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Given that a fellow Blogging Tory has recently accused me of being a coward because I don't want people channelling Mike Tyson on my comment section; I have decided that instead of attempting to refute the allegations, the best course of action is to steer into the slide and embrace it. I fully confess, Raging Tory makes me a little bit nervous. I write my opinion (with a few superlative jokes) that Sarah Palin is not qualified to be President of the United States (polling indicates that roughly 90% of Americans agree with me), and he becomes totally unhinged. I feel like a journalist at a Mike Tyson Press Conference watching Iron Mike spout off "I'm going to fuck you till you love me faggot", wondering if he has gone nuts enough to jump into the audience.

So yes, I embrace my cowardice, and maintain that Sarah Palin should never run for President and that people who believe she should are either foolhardy or downright ignorant. It is okay to like her and I think she would make a terrific talk show host, but I want to keep her out of the Oval Office. If that means that I will incur the rage of people on the far right, so be it. I am grateful to live in a country where I have the freedom to have an opinion, even if sometimes it does hassle the Hoff. I don't want the guy going Mike Tyson on my comment section, and if that means I am a coward, then by all means not only am I a coward, I am a scared coward! Hoff is a real man. Just like Mike Tyson...

I just saw Bob Rae in Question Period, and he looked mighty pissed off. I did not turn the sound on because frankly I don't care what he says anymore. What I do know is that I disagree with Bob Rae about 85% of the time, and if I see him sitting in opposition smoking mad, this signals to me that the government has done something good and should continue. You see, people like Bob Rae can serve a useful purpose in elected office as a canary in the coal mine. If he is singing, we know that all is well. Keep up the great work Mr. MacKay! A great way to succeed in life is to always do the opposite of what Bob Rae wants you to do.

As an aside, I have not rejected any comments since I posted my response to Raging Tory's blog about me. I will not be moderating any comments until after my vacation celebration. I am assuming that there are personal attacks against my person, and as I am preparing for my imminent departure to Salt Lake City, I'd rather not have anyone shit on my picnic. I am heading into the land of the Mormons to have a great time and celebrate my birth. The personal attacks will have to wait for another day, but I am not deleting them. Mr Raging Tory has excited some of the Liberal bloggers by choosing to start a feud with me for having an opinion different from his own on Sarah Palin. I don't do feuds. I remember Biggie and Tupac, and they are both gunned down at the end of that story. Feuds distract attention away from where attention is warranted, the world and the people running it. Note that the people directed to my site by the Chief asshole of the Liberal Blogosphere voted for Sarah Palin in my webpoll. Do you not find it curious that they also want Sarah Palin on the 2012 ticket?

I am going on vacation where I am going to have a good time and enjoy myself.

All my bags are packed I'm ready to goI'm standin' here outside your doorI hate to wake you up to say goodbyeBut the dawn is breakin' it's early mornThe taxi's waitin' he's blowin' his hornAlready I'm so lonesome I could die

So kiss me and smile for meTell me that you'll wait for meHold me like you'll never let me goCause I'm leavin' on a jet planeDon't know when I'll be back again (my vacation will be one week in duration)Oh babe, I hate to go

There's so many times I've let you downSo many times I've played aroundI tell you now, they don't mean a thingEvery place I go, I'll think of youEvery song I sing, I'll sing for youWhen I come back, I'll bring your wedding ring

Now the time has come to leave youOne more time let me kiss youClose your eyes I'll be on my wayDream about the days to comeWhen I won't have to leave aloneAbout the times, I won't have to say

Cause I'm leavin' on a jet planeDon't know when I'll be back againOh babe, I hate to go

I bid you a fond farewell, and never again will I visit your blog or post any comments. You amuse me. It is too bad that you have terminated our correspondence. I wish you best of luck, and if you join the Canadian Armed Forces, may God be with you. We disagree about Sarah Palin. So be it.

That is all that I ever care to say about this thread ever again. I will extend you the same luxury of deleting any comment post that you should write in perpetuity. But don't worry, you won't have to work hard to delete my posts, because there will never be any ever again. Raging Tory is on my shit list.

If you believe that Sarah Palin should be President, you are insane and somebody needs to call an exorcist.

I would like to make a suggestion to Rudy and Mitt. I want both of you two on the Republican ticket in 2012, and I don't really care in what order. If both of you decide to run for the Republican leadership, I would like you to agree to a deal, if either of you win the nomination you will select the other as your running mate. I want a Giuliani-Romney ticket, or even Romney-Giuliani. I am not entirely comfortable with the Mormon Church, but Mitt comes across as the sort to separate Church and State. But if we find out that Mitt gets marching orders from the Grand Temple in Salt Lake City, you are disqualified from my ideal Republican ballot. My parents live in Salt Lake City and I visit them often. We are not fans of the LDS, ergo Mitt must be a really great candidate for me to want him on the ticket, possibly as President.

One of the all-time best episodes of South Park was the one regarding Joseph Smith.

Mike Huckabee creeps me out. Ron Paul is a little too Libertarian. Sarah Palin is better suited for beauty pageants and a talk show. Jindal, no chance. Maybe there is a solid governor out there, but when I look at the preliminary list, I want Rudy and Mitt.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Let me start by saying that I don't believe Barak Obama is qualified for the job either; ergo I believe experience is very important to qualify an individual to be leader of the free world. Obama's inexperience could be the ruin of us all, and it will take a special kind of person to follow in his footsteps. I am very much invested with who is on the Republican ticket in 2012, and I don't want Palin's name on the ballot. It is not a hatred based opinion, but rather a pragmatic assessment of Global Security. My ideal ticket would be Giuliani-Romney.

Is Giuliani experienced enough? He has never been a Governor, but he has an impressive list of accolades. In 1981 Rudy was tapped by none other than the administration of one Ronald Reagan to become Associate Attorney General, one of the most important law enforcement posts in the entire country. Sarah Palin was in high school. In a mere two years, Rudy was promoted to District Attorney of New York where he successfully prosecuted over 4000 convictions and a paltry 25 reversals. Violent criminals taken off the streets, dramatically lowering crime rates in one of the most powerful cities in the world. Right around the time that Giuliani was preparing his rico prosecution against the heads of "the Five Families", Palin was 20 years old and running for Miss Alaska. Rudy had the balls to prosecute the heads of the criminal underworld while Sarah was running in a beauty contest.

When 9/11 happened, Rudy Giuliani was coordinating disaster response for the worst terrorist attack in American history, and he did a fantastic job....while Palin was sitting as mayor of an obscure little town that nobody had ever heard of before she became famous. Do I think Rudy is perfect, not at all. But the western world is at war, and for my war time President I choose to endorse a pit-bull like Rudy Giuliani.

Rudy Giuliani has been on the front lines of the war against bad guys since Palin was a teenager. It is okay to be a fan of Palin. I don't dislike her and I am not promoting an agenda of hate. I even have feelings of affection for her, I would love to see her get her own television program, and I want her to continue promoting the Republican Party. But if and when she announces that she is running for the top slot on the 2012 Republican ticket, I will be among the first the pundits to say NO NO NO.

I apologize if I offended people who like Palin by writing that people who endorse her for President are delusional, but that is my opinion. Maybe it is not a delusion, maybe it is a hypnotic state. I'm just trying to come by with the smelling salts.

But I am far from channeling Maher when I write that…

I have always maintained that I like Sarah Palin as a person and I think that she has a bright future in our society, but anyone who thinks that she can win on a national ticket is delusional.